| Speaker: |
Phil Soriano
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA |
| Title: |
PDGF Signaling Pathways in Development and Homeostasis |
| Summary : | PDGF signaling regulates the development of mesenchymal cell types in the embryo and in the adult, and plays important roles in neural crest and vascular development. We are conducting lineage tracing experiments to explore the role of PDGFR¿ signaling in craniofacial development, as well as focusing on downstream phosphorylation and transcriptional targets of this signaling pathway in development of the midface and palate. To understand the requirement of receptor regulation in tissue homeostasis, we have generated conditional knock-in mice with mutations in PDGFR¿ or PDGFRÀ that drive increased kinase activity under the control of the endogenous promoters. Generalized activation of both receptors reveals that PDGFR signaling antagonizes the normal differentiation of mesenchymal target cells and inhibits the differentiation of white adipocytes. These results identify PDGFR signaling as an important in vivo regulator of of multipotent mesenchymal progenitor cell state. |
